Systems inventories are used to identify systems executing within a computing environment. Such identification may enable features such as billing and metering of systems executing in the computing environment. Examples of computing environments may include, but are not limited to, a virtual infrastructure, public cloud environments, private cloud environments, hybrid cloud environments, containers, software-defined networks, software-defined storage, middleware and its applications, and physical datacenters.
When a client computer system communicates with an inventory server an identification of the communicating client system may be requested for any number of environment management tasks. Such environment management tasks may include providing a self-service portal and capabilities for granular permission for user access, metering and billing for chargeback and showback, ability to provision new instances and applications for an application catalog or from image templates, integration points with existing system management, service catalogs, and configuration management software, and an ability to control and automate the placement and provisioning of new instances based on business and security policies. An inventory server can maintain an inventory to identify the client systems executing within the computing environment.